In connection with this frustrated plan is here given the rough draft of a letter from Agassiz to Cuvier, written evidently at a somewhat earlier date. Although a mere fragment, it is the outpouring of the same passionate desire for a purely scientific life, and shows that the opportunity suggested by Humboldt's journey had only given a definite aim to projects already full grown. From the contents it must have been written in 1828. After some account of his early studies, which would be mere repetition here, he goes on: "Before finishing my letter, allow me to ask some advice from you, whom I revere as a father, and whose works have been till now my only guide. Five years ago I was sent to the medical school at Zurich. After the first few lectures there in anatomy and zoology I could think of nothing but skeletons. In a short time I had learned to dissect, and had made for myself a small collection of skulls of animals from different classes. I passed two years in Zurich, studying whatever I could find in the Museum, and dissecting all the animals I could procure. I even sent to Berlin at this time for a monkey in spirits of wine, that I might compare the nervous system with that of man. I spent all the little means I had in order to see and learn as much as possible. Then I persuaded my father to let me go to Heidelberg, where for a year I followed Tiedemann's courses in human anatomy. I passed almost the whole winter in the anatomical laboratory. The following summer I attended the lectures of Leuckart on zoology, and those of Bronn on fossils. When at Zurich, the longing to travel some day as a naturalist had taken possession of me, and at Heidelberg this desire only increased. My frequent visits to the Museum at Frankfort, and what I heard there concerning M. Ruppell himself, strengthened my purpose even more than all I had previously read. I was, as it were, Ruppell's traveling companion: the activity, the difficulties to be overcome, all were present to me as I looked upon the treasures he had brought together from the deserts of Africa. The vision of difficulty thus vanquished, and of the inward satisfaction arising from it, tended to give all my studies a direction in keeping with my projects."